


A wasteland is no Arcadia

by Velvetcthulhu



Category: Fallout 4
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Fluff, Light-Hearted, M/M, Mild Sexual Content, Not Canon Compliant, Out of Character, Poetic, Queer Themes, Trans Male Character
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-07
Updated: 2020-12-07
Packaged: 2021-03-09 23:55:03
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,323
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27944891
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Velvetcthulhu/pseuds/Velvetcthulhu
Summary: Love is an alive force. Even after the nuclear end of the world, there are still things that bring joy like loopsided sunbeams. For Hancock and Elliott, that's mostly each other.
Relationships: John Hancock (Fallout)/Original Male Character(s), John Hancock/Male Sole Survivor
Comments: 4
Kudos: 15





	A wasteland is no Arcadia

When Hancock walked into the small room in the state house, there was a lump on his bed. Well, more than usually. The bed was rarely used, at least he didn't use it much before, until someone got into the picture. The forementioned someone was laying on the bed and Hancock put down his gun as soon as he realized that the lump is Elliott-shaped. He was out of his vault suit, wearing some faded shirt he got who the fuck knows where from, the print of colourful dots on a black background still visible, and some linen pants, stiched together rough. Most likely made in Goodneighbour, Hancock thought with a swell of pride. He shed his coat, belts and boots, and put his pistol on the rickety nightstand Elliott has insisted they got. He was suprised how the thing didn't collapse yet.  
But Elliott painted on it when he felt too frantic and Hancock rambled about something to him, and all was well. Well, as much as it could be. It made the room more...cozy. Homey. When he sat down on the bed, as light as possible, Elliott rustled, turning around, and opened his eyes, still half asleep. "Hello", he croacked, and immediatly buried his face in Hancock's stomach. He laughed, sandpaper voice rasping gently against the pillows of air between them. "How ya doing, vault boy?"he asked, but Elliott was already half-way asleep, so Hancock just wrapped his arms around him, and they laid down. It didn't take much to the major to fell asleep as well.  
When Elliott first arrived, he had a scowl on his face and short cropped hair, ghosts tangled between his knuckles. They never completely faded away, none of their ghostly baggage did, but the town was home and people who lived there carved a life out for themselves, and that's something. There where days when all both of them, but everyone else as well had were the rising bile in their troaths. There were days when they played games together, not even drunk(high, yes, but not drunk), and it was a challenge who can braid Elliott's hair which was short but fluffy, an auburn, soft mess with a steady, dark glow like how some plants used to glow red during Autumn from Elliott's stories, holding onto his own round glasses as to not to drift away by the weight of his own past. His hair brought that red back in in the sunlight.  
One night before they actually got their heads out of their asses and became an "item", Hancock went to find Elliott, who was sitting on a chair, leaning forward, legs juggling, but his attention was focused on one point in front of himself. Hancock gently tapped his shoulder, and it made the sole survivor startle, but only a bit. "Hi Hancock!" he waved, and took interestq in another point behind the mayor's head. Hancock already knew that he's like that, and didn't really think a lot about it. Some people were like this, some where like that. Only after he learned about how much it mattered to people before in the "old world" from Elliott's stories. If he was being honest, the frantic restlessness was familiar to him as well.  
"You okay brother?" he asked, plopping down on another chair. It creaked a bit, even under his barely there weight. Elliott turned to him, and smiled, a soft and small thing that made the torn fabric of Hancock's heart do funny things. "Yes, just being all over the place. I'm trying to find my way over there." Elliott tapped his own forehead, and Hancock nodded, leaning back, popping out some tablets. "Hmpf?" he offered them to Elliott, as usual, who refused, as usual. His reasoning for the first time was that his mind was a groovy thing that he had to find his way around, and he didn't want to get an anxiety attack or something from his already weird wired ways being altered further. That was enough for the mayor, he wasn't a pushy guy. So he got high and they didn't let each other out of their sights with Elliott, who usually sat or laid close to him, and talked, beacuse Hancock didn't mind the handwaving and the way he streched out his stories like gum, getting lost in many little alleyways, or that he liked to point out things he saw and declaire things he will do. So, Elliott told him stories, pieces of tales he heard or read, myths he remembered from his childhood when he was obsessed with reading mythologies, his personal tales about running away and such, edging around the subject until Hancock, who at this point got an impression of the queerphobic world before, declaired loudly that they're similar to each other, no need to get so skittish.  
From now, Elliott told a lot more of his personal life, about finding community, about once spitting a cop in the eye(Which earned him an enthusiastic "Proud of you, son!" from a dark skinned, blue haired resident of Goodneighbour in The Third Railroad), and a lot of more strange tales, now forever frozen in time like molasses or static in the radio in the hot, heavy Summer air over some kind of sleepy small town in the USA. That's what Hancock got from Elliott's tales: pastel colours, heavy air, nuclear nightmares, smiling prejudices like a knife, people's lives balancing on a strip of plastic. Those bastards didn't deserve Elliott, sure as hell this monster pit doesn't either, no one really does. Especially not him, the stabby and too cocky mayor, but for some reasons Elliott stuck around and told his tales and brushed his hair back and smiled at Hancock, fidgeted with his glasses and punched some guy in Diamond City. Life was as good as it could be.

"Hey, Hancock!" one day Elliott hurried into his office, a grin streched across his face. "I go you something!" Hancock arched a nonexistent eyebrow, stroking his rugged, bald head with his hand. "Drugs?" he asked, and Elliott rolled his eyes fondly. "No you doorknob, a gift." he pulled out a crinkled brown paper wrapped thing from a pocket of his long, tattered coat and put it down on Hancock's desk, sitting down on a chair next to him. The mayor arched the memory of his other eyebrow, and pat his thin thighs. "You have other places to sit, you know." Elliott blushed but took a seat on Hancock's lap, who wound an arm around the sole survivor's waist and gave a squeeze. "Now i can take a look." he ripped off the grainy paper with his free hand, and curiosly took out the item. It was a piece of clothing, a simple gray one, and there was something sewed on the front, altough a little shakily. It said 'Ghoul Gang' in bright neon green yarn. Hancock grinned. "I absolutely love it, Sunshine." he put it on his head, and sighed. "Very comfortable and warm. Not a tricon, of course, but it's good. Especially if i figure out how to wear both this and the tricon." he teased, and Elliott gently smacked him on the shoulder, his muscles straining deliciously to keep his balance, then smacked a kiss on Hancock's head. The ghoul looked at him with complete adoration. He never thought there will be someone like that, a blazing soft light, illuminating his life and other's even in this hellhole. Elliott shifted around to straddle Hancock and wrap his arms around his shoulders.  
They grinned at each other, giddy and full of love. Hancock really expected them to fuck more, but a lot of times they just held each other or necked a bit, got lost in deep conversation. It wasn't just sex. There wouldn't be any problem with that, of course, but they were existing together in many ways, much differently than most relationships either of them had. And that was okay, just like the others were okay as well. Hancock himself wasn't monogamous(when it comes to terms for it, Elliott helped a lot), but Elliott was, and they just...what's the pre-war slang? "Rolled" like this. The mayor was brought back into the moment to Elliott kissing along his neck, and he bared it, smile sharp like a knife through the gentle haze he usually exists in. When he put his hands on Elliott's hips, he got a slow roll of them for an answer, and it was the best to sink in this slow, clothed frottage, wandering hands, no pressure for any kind of "performance".  
Later at night Hancock put the hat in a chest for safekeeping, before going to bed with Elliott, head on his chest, tracing his top surgery scars, almost lost in a multitude of other scars, carved in both of their souls or just a few weeks old. He remembered their almost first time, how there was a burning challenge in Elliott's eyes, graceful arms wrapped around himself, and Hancock never dropped the flag from around his hips this quickly before, pulling Elliott in, so their naked curves fit together, and to show him that they're similar. Even if they wouldn't be, Hancock would still pull him in the same, but they were each other's safe havens. That night, they just held each other, without their clothes but without sex as well. They fell asleep like that and life was as good as it could be. Their dreams were mellow.

One day, when the sun shined, a suprisingly sober Hancock decided it's enough typing away on his old computer, and went to find Elliott. The man was in bed, in the middle of the day, bare chested, tattered but clean blanket on his hip, one of his forearms covering his eyes, as his freckled chest rose and fell. He had thick dark hair in his armpits, and some coming along on his chest, a thick treasure trail, something that totally fascinated Hancock, as he didn't have any body hair, but a lot of people who weren't ghouls didn't either. Thick leg and soft arms hair. But Elliott shaved his face clean, beacuse his facial hair was patchy, and he was only annoyed with it, getting scruffy on his faraway missions. Hancock smuggled them both testosterone injections, and claimed that it was the best drug out of all they took, even his ghoulification meant he didn't have it as much as Elliott, beacuse there was not much other hormones that worked "normally" in his body to replace them. But he still liked to stab himself and of course he felt some side effects. Such as his dick itching like shit.  
Shaking himself out of that stray trail of thought, he took one good look at his boyfriend. The Sun fell on his bare stomach, that with the crumpled sheets and his freckles, the delicate arch of his wrist was something akin a paiting. He was quick and packed a heavy punch, he wasn't helpless or swooning, and it only made his light and etheral pastoral painting beauty more unique. That he left himself be something like that, only here and there, in their bed. People who assumed weakness just beacuse he moved like he's in water, had rosy cheeks and messy dark curls were in for a nasty and painful suprise. Roses have thorns, the Greek statues were warriors, and eels are deadly agile.

"Hello" Elliott said without looking up. "I'm dreaming. Would you like to dream with me?" Before answering, Hancock sat down on the bed. "What are you dreaming about?" he asked softly. The other man still didn't look up from under his arm, but that wasn't unusal. "I'm dreaming about us. A pre-war France or Italy. A house, colourful mediterrian house we rent. It's Summer." he said, and extended his other, free hand toward Hancock. When the mayor took it, Elliott gently pulled him down next to himself.  
Hancock watched his biceps flexing. When he was finally laid down, he was quiet and almost unmoving. Time flew between what remained of Hancock's his lips. He pushed up his head against Elliott's, from under his chin. Sometimes he wanted to be the one fit into his arms, nudging him gently, sometimes he was cocky, coaxing Elliott to sit on his lap, especially in public, beacuse he wanted to hold him against his chest. But now, he was the one hiding in Elliott's neck, who's elegant but calloused hands with the strong veins and chafed knuckles held him by the back of his neck.  
They were both like sheer forces of nature, together and their own, and ever changing like the wind. "Would you like to tell me more about this dream?" he asked eventually, and Elliott gave a nod. "Everything is green. There are statues hidden between the leaves and fountains, shaped as human faces, water coming out of their mouths. Cool arches of gates and stained glass. Time moves slowly like molass, and we will be embraced by it, grass under our feet and backs. We would fuck, but slowly, all sensuality and rolling in the grass. Do you see it now?"he suddenly turned to Hancock, dark eyes burning.  
The ghoul's eyes were wide with wonder as well. "I do. And it kind of makes me sad that i couldn't give you that life." as soon as the last word left his mouth, two warm, lean muscled arms embraced him and pulled him in, in, in, until nothing existed but the faint mint scent of Elliott, the salty warmth of his skin. The taste of dreamscapes.  
"Oh love." he said, brushing his hand across Hancock's face gently. He looked like those statues now, an entity of beauty and grace, but never cold, never arrogant, bringing light and life to everything he cast his smile on. "You already gave me everything i could want."

**Author's Note:**

> Author is transmasc and hyperactive. I wanted to put more emphasis on neurodivergency but it flowed differently 😅 I hope it brings you as much joy as i had while writing it! It's out of character, has zero backstory, ignores canon and just floats there. Enjoy :D - Roland


End file.
